...unfinished projects...

There are a stack of unfinished projects cluttering up our storage area. I'm the kind of person that gets really excited about a task then quickly loses interest once it gets too difficult – yes, not one of my better qualities. So today I challenged myself to finish a skirt that had been neatly tucked away in my sewing box.

My mom and I had started this particular skirt back in October, and she had finished most of the work. All that was left was to sew in the zipper and the waistband, and then hem it. Surely I could get that done in a three hour window this afternoon.

I started by securing the zipper to the skirt with pins, and then carefully began to sew it in. Somehow, while sewing in the zipper I managed to also sew the dress to itself. I'm still not sure how it happened! After ripping all that out with my trusty seam ripper and reattaching the zipper, I attempted to add the waistband. What a nightmare! It was so bad, in fact, that I had to cut the waistband off the skirt before I could rip out the seams. I never even had a chance to hem.

So I spent my afternoon sewing this skirt and all I have to show for it is a lousy zipper!

...pause...8 hours later...

As I reread and edited what I had written last night, I couldn't figure out where to go from there. I sat on the couch and stared at that material, trying to determine what lesson could be learned and applied from this adventure. I had nothing.

When is it ok to give up? I asked myself. When can we throw in the towel and say it's just not our thing? How many unfinished projects can we have?

And then I thought about my children, what I wanted to teach them and what they would see in me.

So I stopped writing this post and continued to work on that skirt. That frustrating, slippery skirt. I tore out the zipper and resewed it. I sewed in the waistband, though I had to rip that out several times before figuring out how to make it look nice. It also has the beginnings of a hem, but I'm going to need to rip that out and redo it, too. (This poor skirt has more needle holes than a piece of Swiss cheese!)

Yesterday afternoon I was ready to fold up all that material and stuff it back in my sewing box. Late last night, I rested my head on my pillow knowing that the worst was over and the skirt would get finished. 

Sometimes, when we push ourselves a little further, a little harder, we find that we were always up to the task.